Did You Guys Catch NatGeo's Locked Up Abroad: Arrested For Being Gay?

Well I happened to put the TV on and it was just on NatGeo. I was eating dinner, so I didn't bother to change the channel and I saw Locked Up Abroad on, a show I really like. Anyway I try to catch up with the story since I'm a few minutes in, I see a gay guy in a Middle Eastern country (can't remember which one) and he hooks up with a guy. He doesn't see the guy for a while after that, then he contacts him again and sets up a coffee date. When he goes to the date, these guys attack him in the alley way and yell at him (in Arabic) about being gay and it being a crime (apparently they were the 'religious police').

So they get him locked up in a cell, then they bring the guy out into an interrogation room and tell him to sign this paper that's all in Arabic and no one explains to him what it says. They torture him until he puts his thumb print on it (he was too beaten up to sign his name). Repeatedly they asked if he was gay, which he denied, but they still continued to beat him. I thought they were going to lock him up for life or something, but then he was freed... not sure why or how.

At this point, he's about ready to leave that place. More incentive to do so ASAP, his friends in his home country called him and said how they read a story about the religious police trying to execute a homosexual they caught in the country he's in... I think it was actually mentioned as him. Well he manages to get out of there safely at the end of it all.

What I wanted to hear from you guys are your reactions to a story like this. Obviously it's insane to even attempt to be out and gay in a Middle Eastern country because there will be no one to save you, as the government is strongly influenced by religion. It just really saddens me to think that a guy that did absolutely nothing wrong had to endure all of that pain. To think that this is happening in 2013 is just disgusting.

Believe you me being being Gay in an Islamic country is very precarious. Homosexuality is very prevalent. In fact there are plenty of married men that have sex which each other on the DL. This kind of behavior is acceptable for them because they outwardly, they are law abiding , married, god fearing men.

OneSongGlory saidWhat I wanted to hear from you guys are your reactions to a story like this

My reaction would be helped by your remembering more details of what you saw. Like what country it happened in, when this was, of what country this guy was a citizen.

And how was all of this videotaped? How was this reported, that National Geographic would be able to air it? How did they get these images? Is there an episode name to this show, that we can see it for ourselves?

OneSongGlory saidWhat I wanted to hear from you guys are your reactions to a story like this

My reaction would be helped by your remembering more details of what you saw. Like what country it happened in, when this was, of what country this guy was a citizen.

And how was all of this videotaped? How was this reported, that National Geographic would be able to air it? How did they get these images? Is there an episode name to this show, that we can see it for ourselves?

Well Locked Up Abroad is a show where it's a re-telling of a man's story. So he went through it, without a camera around, then years later he came onto this show and they recreated the story with their actors and stuff, but all those things did happen to the guy.

I love that show too. I watched a bunch of them in a row one rainy day. Most of the people locked up were breaking the law and knew the risks involved. This story sounds different and reminds me how things could be here if left to religious zealots seeking to rid society of people they see as an abomination before God. I never take for granted the freedoms we have in the US. Freedoms earned through time and struggle can also be taken away in a flash. Such was the case of Germany in the last century. A documentary I saw about gay victims of the Holocaust, showed grainy footage of openly gay men and women holding hands in outdoor Berlin cafes. The program mentioned there were more Gay bars in Berlin in the 1920's than in all of modern day New York, LA, or San Francisco combined. While I had heard of the origins of the pink triangle, I never knew Germany was so gay friendly before Hitler. I later recalled something I'd read about Oscar Wilde's gay sex trial and how he was urged by confidants to flee to Germany just before being tried for gay sex crimes in the UK during that same period. From what I have read, the change in Germany's tolerance for gays happened swiftly and with little fanfare. This is why I believe it's so important to stand up for others rights....even if those rights don't benefit you or your loved ones directly.